Chapter 96: Chapter 91

While we waited for her pod to arrive, I ran to the house to grab the suet cake. Molls had been replaced by the young woman with a sketch pad I had seen around the campground. The girl appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen.

When I arrived in the doorway, she jumped to her feet and clapped her pad closed. She had been in one of the wicker chairs Molls had got for me, but quickly moved to the door as if to leave.

“Woah, hang on,” I said.

She stopped and turned, clutching her pad to her chest with both arms. Her lips were a tight white line.

I winced. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. You the new babysitter? Took over for Molls?”

She nodded. “They said I had to do something to help.”

“Oh, yeah sorry. That’s kind of my rule. Getting taken a little out of context, I think. I’ll talk to the hobbs,” I offered.

She nodded once, a tight movement of her chin. I could see that her jaw was still clenched.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Melanie Capris,” she said. “Or just Mel.”

“Mel, I’m sorry to do this to you, but I actually do still need a babysitter for Cube. Are you okay with staying a little longer? I just have this quick meeting with some birds.” 

I paused there, narrowing my eyes in thought. 

“Shouldn’t be more than an hour, I’d be surprised if it took that long. Would you mind staying until I’m done? Please?”

The girl’s arms loosened somewhat, and she nodded. “Yeah, that’s okay. Hey, what is Cube?”

I sighed and chuckled. “I honestly don’t know. Right now, he’s our power supply. He’s also a baby, I’m pretty sure.” I turned to leave, as the girl sat back down, staring at Cube. “He does eat meat, so he might bite. Just be careful if you try to touch him.”

“What do I do if he gets hungry?” she asked.

“Oh he’ll yell if he wants something, don’t worry about missing that,” I said with a laugh. “Just call for a hobb, they’ll bring what you need.”

When I glanced back, the girl was staring at Cube nervously. I sighed and turned around, walking back the few steps to the doorway.

“Look, I don’t think he’s dangerous, not at this point. He might grow into something dangerous, but right now he’s just a baby. I doubt he’ll hurt you, unless it's by accident, which is why I warned you about touching him. Are you okay with watching him for me?” I asked, waiting for her answer.

She stared at the little metal box on his stand for a long moment before she turned back and nodded at me, opening her sketch pad.

“Awesome, thank you Mel, this really helps me out,” I said, as I turned to jog away.

When I glanced back at the exit of my driveway, she was contentedly sketching Cube, glancing between him and her sketch pad.

I took a deep breath and turned back to meet with Darclau and Sheena. The translator's pod was arriving as I did, and the unkindness of ravens was all out on their perches to watch.

Darclau was there, perched happily at the front of his gang, on the comfortable section of fencing he’d had installed. I lifted the pan of suet cake as I walked up to him and smiled.

The bird immediately cocked his head to one side and peered into the dish, before retracting his neck and cackling happily. The other ravens all hopped over to stare at the dish and I set it down for them, perching the platter between the fence and their newly installed food-canes.

As the birds happily pigged out on pumpkin seeds in yarsp fat, I watched Sheena and four bodyguards step out of a dazzling beam of rainbow light. They were all the same species, as far as I could tell, the same advanced corvids that had taken the campground once before.

The birdmen held slag rifles and moved to secure Darclau’s little fiefdom, one standing in place at each wall, with the final bodyguard following Sheena directly.

She nodded at me, her long beak bobbing as she stepped forward. Her bodyguards all wore the same type of black armor I kept seeing on mercenaries and soldiers in BuyMort, but Sheena herself wore another business suit.

Her long, double jointed legs were partially covered by a pleated black skirt, complemented by a matching suit jacket, and a white blouse. She spread her wings, and her feathers extended through a slit in the underside of her sleeves. Sheena crooned at Darclau, and the raven looked up from his suet cake feast to squawk in happiness.

Darclau hopped over the cane-tops to Sheena and thrust out his beak to nuzzle against her claw. She blinked and sighed at him, before turning to me.

“It is good to see you again, Tyson Dawes of Silken Sands. I had hoped to say my goodbyes to Darclau and his friends, but with my affiliate’s sudden departure from this system, I feared it would not happen,” she said, lightly stroking Darclau’s head.

The smaller bird leaned into the affection with closed eyes, his beak hanging slightly open.

Sheena chuckled in the back of her throat and turned to me. “What would you like translated?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” I started. “We need his report, I sent him scouting yesterday.”

The bird woman nodded in understanding. She started warbling, clicking, burbling, and ‘gwaw’ing at Darclau, and soon the raven was doing it back. At one point, Darclau hopped back inside his small structure and returned wearing his odd little techy-looking helmet. It had a bank of small lights on the front, but he fiddled with a setting and turned them off, before removing the helmet with a claw and handing it over to Sheena. 

Sheena played with the tiny helmet for a moment, and a red light projection emanated from it, bathing Darclau’s house in lines of red light. The bird hopped over to the helmet and helped Sheena manipulate it, changing the red lines on the house into a different array.

The projection meant nothing to my eyes, but Sheena seemed to suddenly recognize something in it, burbling at Darclau, who cawed happily, before going back to his rapid pace jabbering at the woman. They talked at length, while I waited, and Lee yawned into one hand.

After a little while of their back and forth, Sheena produced a note-pad from one of her pockets and began drawing on it while talking to the raven. Darclau often looked at the picture when she offered it to him, and they went back and forth over particulars.

It was odd, watching an entire conversation unfold without any ability to understand what was being said. So much of their communication was through body language. They bobbed and flapped their arms at each other, and their faces were filled with strange expressions during the exchange.

Then, just as quickly as it had started, she stroked Darclau’s head one more time and turned away from him to face me. Sheen handed over her sketchpad, and I blinked in amazement at what she had produced.

A small, but incredibly detailed picture was on the undersized sheet of paper. It featured labels in exquisite handwriting, and featured both the militia headquarters, and the orbital elevator in the background. The picture resembled a birds-eye view of the area surrounding Prescott, but with our critical areas of operation focused upon and enlarged.

“This is . . . I, uh,” I started, bringing the picture closer to my face in an attempt to see more detail.

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“Oh I apologize. I forget that human eyes are so different,” Sheena said, rummaging through her suit jacket’s pockets again. She produced a magnifying glass.

Lee grumbled something under his breath as we both gathered close to see. With Sheena’s help, we got the general message.

The Arms Keepers militia, Sheena explained, was camped out at a mine on the very outskirts of Prescott valley. This was not news, I had known that part already. However, Darclau got us not only a location, but a thorough description of the area.

It might just be too much TV as a kid, but anytime I hear the word ‘mine,’ I think of a Wild West style mine. Replete with old rusty minecarts and wooden support beams. This mine was nothing like that.

Primarily, the mine was a series of metal sided buildings tucked into a massive dirt lot surrounded by heavy fencing, with large mechanical ore feeder ramps extending back and forth across the property. A great dig scar in the land behind the facility was visible, but not focused on in the drawing. There were towers across the property as well, and several underground entrances, notable by the heavy metal double doors across each.

Darclau turned out to be a good scout, not just for the detailed information he was able to gather about the surroundings, but because he had paid close attention to everything. As Sheena was giving us all of the information Darclau had given her, she said something that stuck out.

“He also said they seemed hungry, he watched a fight break out amongst children, over an item of food,” Sheena said offhandedly.

Lee’s eyes finally opened wide, and he looked to me for my reaction. I smiled and nodded at him.

“Tell me more about that, please,” I said.

Sheena blinked at me a few times, ruffled her feathers, and nodded. “Darclau waited and watched, sitting on a nearby fence. He says the people there paid him no attention, as long as he stayed far enough away and stayed quiet.”

She took a breath and swallowed, looking at the raven. He had rejoined his friends, and they were making a greasy, fatty mess out of the suet cake I made them.

“He said a small fight broke out among a group of children. One of them had run from an underground entrance, followed by several others. They knocked down the runner, before beating and kicking them while trying to pry something out of their hands. Before long, an adult arrived and broke up the fighting, sending all the children back underground,” she said.

“Darclau says the fight was over a piece of food, a candy bar. He knows them because they had colorful wrappers and he liked to eat the chocolate remains from them before BuyMort.” Sheena finished and glanced between me and Lee, while I was treated to an assortment candy ads and images.

NEW - from the best-selling confectionaries in the Multiverse . . . Soul Chocolate. 

The image of a human male coughing appeared before me, a brightly incandescent cloud streaming from out his mouth and into the sky.

30 seconds. The average human brain experiences powerful aphrodisiacal dream recall for 30 seconds during and after a known death event. And we here at Destinyzz capture that phenomenon and bring it to you. Without the Death and Dismemberment!

A giggling cherub swung through the sky, capturing the apparent soul into a sack and flying off to an obvious factory churning wispy-black smoke into the skies.

Each bite a memory. Each bar a lifetime. Soul Chocolate. The candy that gives you your life back. Literally. 250 morties ea. 4.7 stars.

Behind the ad, Lee shrugged, and his mustache twitched as he prepared to speak. “Well, hunger in their camp changes things.”

I dismissed the ad, then nodded. “It does. They’ve got kids there, which means families. We can’t just roll over them and take their weapons, knowing that. I’m supposed to be trying to help people like them.”

Lee frowned and shrugged. “I was referencing their hunger situation, but yeah sure.”

With another nod to Lee, I turned back to Sheena. “This is very helpful Sheena, thank you.”

“Wait, I’m not done,” she said, pointing to the notepad.

In the background of her drawing loomed the space elevator. It consisted of a series of interwoven cables, but light and air could be seen through the gaps. 

I glanced at it in the distance, shielding my eyes from the bright morning light. From my distance, I couldn’t see the smaller details, it just looked like a giant, towering cable of metal.

The tip of Sheena’s claw was pointing at the base of the tower, where an alien building stood. It was constructed from what looked like black plastic blocks that interlocked, and hundreds of great panes of glass.

“This is where the green man went, whatever that means. Darclau says it’s a very bad place, and he doesn’t like talking about what happened there. I suspect they shot at him, and very nearly killed him. He’s very scared of this place and tells you not to go there. Says they’ll kill you if you do,” Sheena said, her expression full of serious gloom.

I glanced at Darclau, and smiled at how happy he looked, with several small gobs of fat stuck to his beak. All the other ravens were still pigging out, but he looked full, sitting on the fence and squinting contentedly in the morning sunlight. I smiled and chuckled at the bird, and Sheena clicked her tongue.

She prodded me with a fingertip in the shoulder. “That bird loves you, Tyson Dawes. He thinks of you as a sort of big brother.”

“I won’t send him anywhere that I know he’ll be in harm’s way, Sheena. I promise you that; he’s part of my affiliate,” I said. “I want him here and safe, especially after hearing what you said about them. About how rare they’ve become.” 

She held my gaze for a long moment, before nodding her long beak.

“I believe you mean that, and I hope he and you make it. A fight with The Dearth Conglomerate is not something I would wish on anyone,” she said.

I smirked at her. “Yeah, but neither is a fight with me, so we’ll see how it all shakes out.”

Sheena shook her head sadly. “Thank you, Tyson, for allowing me to say goodbye. Darclau is a special person.” She hesitated, but then looked me in the eye and continued, “and so are you. I hope to see you both again someday.”

I nodded and extended my hand to her.

Darclau suddenly burbled something from the fence. Sheena opened her beak and stared at him, but he repeated it and she shrugged. As I held my hand extended toward her, Sheena pecked the center of my palm.

The gathered ravens burst into caws and ‘gwa’ sounds, fluttering to find a nearby place on the fence and enjoy their leader’s joke. I sighed and glared at Darclau, but he was on his back in the leather perch, kicking his feet up and raucously cawing at the sky.

Sheena reached for my hand again and took it in her own claws. She gently shook my hand, being careful not to cut me with the tips of her talons. “I apologize, he told me you like it when we peck your hands.”

I laughed. “You know, I kind of do. It’s a joke he plays on me, makes me feel like his big brother.”

Sheena the bird woman blinked in surprise but nodded and turned away. As she was leaving, she whistled, and her bodyguards fell in beside her. The pod had remained and laid out a projection of where to stand. She turned back and stared at me for a long moment before she walked into the beam.

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